


Begin, Anew

by OrionsVisiting



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Broken Families, F/M, Gendry Waters-centric, Gendry-centric, Not A Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-08
Updated: 2020-05-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:53:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24082375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OrionsVisiting/pseuds/OrionsVisiting
Summary: They never really worked together, did they?That’s why she gave him the baby, that’s why Gendry sleeps alone at night.(~Post Season 8~)
Relationships: Arya Stark & Gendry Waters, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Comments: 3
Kudos: 60





	Begin, Anew

**Author's Note:**

> First fic on ao3!!! Usually more a ffnet poster, but who gives a shit.
> 
> I love Gendrya as a couple, but not in canon. They don’t really fit. I like that they didn’t end up together -neither GOT nor real life is ever that easy or happy.
> 
> I keep seeing these Gendrya baby story’s that always unites them at the end, where Arya always says “Ey doon’t whant et” all Jon Snow-style until she actually birthes the baby and then instantly falls in love, before reuniting with Gendry and happy family fix-it time. But that’s not really how it works, is it.
> 
> This isn’t very Arya or Gendry friendly.
> 
> _________________________

Gendry Baratheon’s life changed forever when a single woman on horseback arrived in Storm’s End.

“Changed forever”; A phrase used by so many to describe so many inconsequential things.

But Gendry’s life had ‘changed forever’ many times before. When he realized he was Robert Baratheon‘s bastard, when he was legitimized and named lord of Storm’s End. But never changed quite as so as on that winter day.

The babe had short, dark hair and dark grey eyes. He would have thought the child would share his sharp blue eyes, seeing how prevailent all the Baratheon features usually seem to be, but she always dominated him in everything so why not in their child’s looks as well.

It always astounded him, how he could spend hours thinking about what he would say to her, how he would give her a piece of his mind on her treatment of him, but the moment he saw her he would just freeze up and follow along with what she would say.

Maybe that’s what love is.

She’s gone as soon as she came. She just dropped of her daughter with little commotion and left again. He asked her what the child’s name was; she just shrugs and tells him to name ‘it’ himself.

_________________________

Gendry names her Mya, because Davos told he had a bastard sister of that name,and because the name is short and easy to spell -He’s still getting used to writing and spelling.

He’s getting used to so many things. He doesn’t know so much and that what he does know is useless to him. Can’t hammer in a farmer for annoying him. Can’t swear at a lord for being unreasonable. He can’t melt his daughter in fire and shape her anew in hopes of raising her into a good person.

So he’s awkward with the baby, but at least he tries. But “be the father Robert never was” is so much easier said then done; Mya cries and that frustrates him because he can never tell why.

 _She_ probably would have known why. She was always so good at reading people. Or maybe she couldn’t read the baby and that’s why she just gave Mya to him, because she couldn’t bear not knowing.

He doesn’t love Mya at first either. Gendry always hears story’s of how parents instantly love their child, how with the first glance they lay upon the babe they just know and the child is just so beautiful and every other wonderful thing that parenthood has too give. But Gendry doesn’t love his daughter at first- He even thinks she’s kinda ugly.

But somewhere between the wet nurses and septa’s, at point where the long winter finally turns into summer, if realizes he does love her.

_________________________

She grows and is mischievous and quite smart. Has a temper as well. She loves learning, books, reading and all other things he never did. She has no interest for swordplay and sports but also none for needlework and songs. He doesn’t know where she gets it all from.

Mya asks him once if she could become a maester when she is grown and he laughs. Maybe, he wants to tell her, times in Westeros are changing who knows.

But Gendry isn’t sure things ever truly change, so he just gives his daughter a kiss on the forehead instead.

Davos tells him, when Mya’s about 7, that a ship from the Sunset Sea has returned and docked at Lannisport a month or two ago. He doesn’t know if he should hate or love Davos for telling him that.

He sits in his study that night, after eating, just contemplating, remembering _her_ and their time together. Had he really loved her? Does he still?

If he truly thought about it, he had very few memories with her that weren’t soaked in blood, tears and death. In their youth, a connection made through mutual fear. In adulthood, through desperation.

A servant walked into his study and clears away his plates. He pauses, watching her momentarily, feeling a twinge of familiarity in the way she moved. Simple, but calculating. To plain with no personality or flair. He called to the maid right before she exited the room.

“Yes mi’lord?” She asks him, turning to him. He doesn’t recognize her face or her voice-years later not being able to recall anything else from the encounter aside from her expression. Her face and her tone were blank, her eyes staring so passively at him, he knew it was her. One of her tricks.

But he just waved her off and she left. He let her go. It’s not like he hasn’t just let her go before.

The maid wasn’t seen before or after that night ever again. And he doesn’t see her again until Mya is almost grown.

_________________________

 _She_ arrives on ship, this time not cloaked on a horse, or cloaked in a disguise, but fully in the open.

Mya looks more like him now, dark hair turning black with sturdy shoulders and a heart-shaped face. Still had the Stark eyes though. At 15 still preferring to read books then deal with potential suitors. Which Gendry is completely fine with - she’s too young for that anyways.

She still wore boots, leathers and a sword by her hip. She smiled when she saw him. She had smile lines to suggest that she’d been smiling a lot in their time apart.

She was older now, but so was Gendry. Her eyes crinkled when she grinned and her laugh was filled with more life. His beard was clipped and spotted with grey, his forehead had wrinkles since he frowned too much.

He calls to Mya to greet their guest. Mya curtsies, and pauses after “lady…?”, not knowing who she was. This doesn’t phase the older woman, who just smiles in return, telling her own daughter to _just call her Arya_.

 _Mya’s a Baratheon by name now_ , he wants to say, _I had your brother legitimize her. Try to prevent the other lords and ladies from spitting on her for her birth, but she had to learn that she’s a bastard. It’s eats her up inside that she is. You could have prevented this. You could have stayed._

But she smells like the sea and adventure, her hair slightly crusted from the ocean air and with a light tan, and he knew she never could have.

They go on the walk, the three of them, by the bay. Mother and unknowing daughter walk a bit ahead and he watches them interact. It’s a warm, sunny day and he can hear Mya chatting away about some book she just finished about alchemy, her mother nodding along, interested.

She turns to him briefly, her face catching the light and she’s suddenly Arya again.

Arya Stark, the illusion of the girl he loved. The dream of stability and peace where he had never known any, the thought of a perfect, beautiful lady by his side. She was gorgeous, she was deadly. Wicked and lovely. Her smile the same as it had been, as it’s always been, beautiful and unchanged.

And then she turns away again and it’s just her again, the moment broken. Just a normal person. The actual person. The one who didn’t care who he imagined and wanted her to be. Sea salt and age where he still expected youth and the wild forest.

It hurts, and his heart aches.

Whatever, he thinks to himself, she’ll be gone by morning anyway.


End file.
